Fixing It

It was actually kind of fun, for a Monday.  I slept in, went out to the airport, they had BOB out and I did a leak test/check engine run on both engines, and it looked and sounded good. Ate lunch out there with everyone, hung out a bit with the hangar doors open and the sunshine inside. Took the Champ up by myself that afternoon, and flew it until I ran it out of gas. I didn't start full, so I only got about 1.5 in. I ended up putting 10 gallons in a 13 gallon tank, but since it burns 4 gph, I still had more than legal reserves. I just don't usually go until I'm looking at the fuel wire. :D But I didn't want to quit. My feet aren't quite back from winter, so I had some rust to knock off, and it was nice that nobody was around to watch or judge. The winds were a variable and swappy so that made it a little harder, but that's just good practice. Finally the last .5 of my flight I started feeling like I was dialed in. It's a zone, it's not just "fine", you can just tell when you're there. Don't know how to describe it other than being in the zone. That's why I didn't want to quit, because I was just feeling that kicking in and I needed about another 30 min. Unfortunately though, I'd definitely have been too close on gas for that one. ;)  I'll go back up another day and see if I can start off there and not take an hour to get there. But I DID feel better afterwards. I'd been having that knot in my chest, that weight, restless, icky, and I have to admit it felt a lot better after that.  Next I ran up the Aerostar in a leak check too, and it did fine. It will be back up and running as soon as Nathan signs off the annual paperwork. Yay! Now I just need the T-6 done. Which Jon was working on yesterday, so...

From there I ran home and changed into a nice shirt, and then took the three people down to Eagle Creek to eat at Rick's Boatyard. Their daughter (young teen) had done it online, and they didn't have a clue what they'd won or what they were doing. They showed up in jean shorts and t-shirts and old tennis shoes, and Rick's is a 'fancy'-ish restaurant. I asked the daughter, who sat up front, if she was interested in airplanes and she said "No, not really". Both the adults in the back got queasy enough I had to break out sick sacks--it's a 15 minute flight. So all in all, this started off a little rough. lol After I got them there and had them on their way to the restaurant, I ordered take-out on line. I actually ended up with this beet caprese salad of all things, but it just sounded good. Usually I get seafood of some sort down there, but this salad kept eyeballing me, and the only reason I was ignoring it was because I didn't want to get a salad when I could get something bigger and cooler. But my system wanted beets and mozzarella, what can I say. It was really good! (Roasted beets and fresh mozzarella, mixed greens, and pistachio, tossed in balsamic vinaigrette.)

The trip home, it was cooler and smoother. It was supposed to be a sunset flight, but sun doesn't go down until 9 pm here, so that was a little too long for this one. I showed them downtown Indy from the air, and stuff on the way home, helped them see their house, and then let the daughter fly some straight and level, which they thought was super cool though the mom was a little scared. I told her I had controls too and wouldn't let anything get interesting. They took pictures and laughed and had a great tie and nobody got sick on the way home. So the evening ended a lot better than it started, which is good. :)

All in all it was an enjoyable day. Nice weather, friends around, good food, some flying, nothing stressful or icky.

When I got home, I tried on my two dresses that came in. One long teal one with a slit and one long burgundy wrap dress. Both were a little too small around my waist, neither looked nearly as bad as I thought they would. I showed them to Steve and Kaylee as an "Old Lady Prom Dresses 1 and 2", and we agreed they weren't terrible. I'm going to keep looking, but I've found some things I do and don't like. I liked the sleeves on Dress 1, I liked the flowy part of Dress 2, etc. At least it's still just May and I have a little time here. Steve has to go get a nice suit, too. 

I had just been thinking about how it's been a really long time since I had a headache. Today's weather took care of that streak. Woke up at 6:30 with it, went back to sleep and didn't get up until like 9 am! Packaged up the two dresses to send back for a refund, while I keep looking. Dropped them off at UPS, went to lunch with Steve, Chuck and AE, stopped at the post office to gather some more bills from the hospital stay in FL. But you know, so far, my insurance isn't doing too bad with this emergency situation. Once the deductible (the very high deductible) was met, it seems to be covering what's come through so far. I still haven't seen any bills for the big stuff. No doctors, no meds, and only some of the tests. So I'm not relaxing yet. But I am feeling cautiously optimistic that my week long stay down there may not bankrupt us after all.

I was supposed to go to Colorado today, but today's weather was sucky enough that they postponed until tomorrow instead. It'll be windy as heck, and rainy, and cloudy, but at least it won't be thunderstormy and tornado-y. ;)

Went to do laundry last night, walked over to the machine and heard a funny noise. Explored and found water coming out of the hose from the wall that goes to the washer. A lot of it. I called Steve over, and he said "The water company called to let me know I had a small leak at the house and I've been looking for it." There it is. Got it fixed, got everything pulled out and cleaned up underneath, and at midnight I finally did the load of laundry I needed for the next day. lol Glad we found it when we did, though. That could've been a much bigger mess. Wonder what my water bill is going to be next month.

Got a call today from someone who said his buddy (whom I know) lost his medical and needs someone to sit left seat in a Citation for him, and he was floating my name. I said I was really busy already, how much flying is he doing? He said not much, birthdays and holidays, just to N Carolina and back usually, and the plane isn't even RVSM so can't go over FL280. I said maybe. I'd have to go to FlightSafety and get a type rating that he'd have to pay for, but then insurance would like me because of my total time and multi time and turboprop time. Don't know if that would work out or not, seems more like a low time pilot gig, especially flying with the guy who's been doing it himself for years and now has to sit there because of a medical issue. He's not a super friendly guy to start with, and I'm guessing he won't be in a great mood. ;) But...we'll see. I don't know that I have time for that regardless, even if he doesn't do much. But I wouldn't mind doing a jet type rating at some point just to have done it. Even though both the Conquest II and the Cheyenne 400LS way outperform the early Citation model that I'd be flying. Kind of funny. 

Tonight we went to Booker's for dinner with AE and made it home just before another round of severe storms with tornado crap in it arrives. Yadda yadda.

Guess that's about it. Not a bad two days, I didn't mind the slower pace here. Tomorrow is Colorado, Thursday is Marco, FL, and Fri-Sat is an overnight to Nashville. As long as the weather isn't still scary, sounds like a good time to me!

I took a screenshot of this because it looks like I flew through the middle of a bunch of bad stuff on my way home from FL. Instead, I was going around the back side of that on the way home, and that green line was my track on the way down--when the weather wasn't there. It just looked funny so I screen-shotted it.

Me in the Champ working on getting my mojo back

Self-explanatory!

My nice dress shirt, BeReal went off, I was in front of Rick's. You can see the outside seating behind me, on the water. I didn't eat at the restaurant itself so I wouldn't run into the family I just took down there. Awkward. ;)